PlanetSide 2; Any players?

[jay2tall]

So I had tried out PlanetSide 2 (downloaded through Steam). It is a "Free to Play" business model that lets you play the game for free, but lets you use SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) Station Cash to buy certain equipment. This equipment can also be purchased through the in game Cert Credits that you earn. You can either buy Station Cash as you wish or pay a monthly subscription fee that gives you 500 SC a month and increases the percentage of gains in XP and such. You can also just simply play for free.

I actually picked up a $15 Station Cash card at GameStop which unlocks a gun for you in the game as well. I felt like I had to give something back to the game. I've been playing with a buddy or two of mine and didn't know who all was out there playing this title. It reminds me a lot of Battlefield 2142, just on a much grander scale with 3 factions going at it at once on 3 separate continents. However, battles go for weeks on end and you can jump in and out as you please.

For those of you who do play I'm still getting the hang of the game and understanding the objective of the entire thing still eludes me a little. For example, last evening Me and a buddy where playing on the snowy continent of Esamir. We are Vanu (purple), and pushed the other two factions back to their Warp Gates. However, since you can not enter that area as it is restricted, what is the objective? Can you ever enter this area and if not, how do you win the game?

I am hoping to generate some conversation on this game. If you haven't played, I suggest you give it a try. It's an MMOFPS and allows for up to 2000 players per continent, there are three that you can warp to and from freely. It is refreshing since you are more focused on objectives and K/D doesn't mean crap. If you venture out on your own, you will not last long at all. It is very cooperative, even when their isn't much communication, sticking together as a squad or platoon is the biggest advantage you can give yourself in the game.

 

[brett1042002]

Yes, sir! Played through most of beta as well.

Having a great time. Me and some friends are on Genudine server, VS. I, mainly, rock the engy, but switch to other roles depending on the need. I love the strategy involved, and that its not a one-man army type of game. Rushing a base with several hundred others is epic. I've been in some crazy long battles.

My ONLY gripe with this game is optimization. But it could be that my rig is finally due for an upgrade. I don't know whether to wait for "optimizations" or upgrade my mobo/cpu now. I feel my GPU isn't the bottleneck in this case. As the in-game FPS monitor reports my CPU as the bottleneck in battles. I run on Medium, 1920x1080, with shadows low, and fog off.

I did the "unparked cores fix" and surprisingly it gave me ~5-10 fps. But I still hover around ~25-30fps in battle. At warp gate I sit at 80-90fps, v-sync off.

About to buckle and pick up a i5 3570k and OC its pants off. I know my GPU is old too, but at least this would be a starting point.

EDIT: I don't think there is an end-game to it. If you gate-lock a faction, it just keeps going. Maybe there should be some sort of incentive for gate-locking or dominating the entire map? Same goes with defending a region. Right now, if you defend, you get a pat on the back and move on. However, capturing a uncontrolled area yields a nice XP gain (250-1000xp). I don't see much point in defending a territory besides the XP gain from kills. But, I am optimistic about new content/fixes getting added in the near future.

EDIT2: Possible you're being sarcastic with game title, but you are referring to Planetside2, correct?

 

[jay2tall]

I'll have to ask my buddy what settings he runs at and his frames. He has a Phenom II 955BE as well, not sure what clock. He is running a GTX460 1GB card. I think I recall him saying he runs on medium. My system runs it maxed out with vsync on and sits at 60FPS 1080p always. Not sure if that is a comparison at all, but it's an almost 4 year old CPU. My i7 920 is @ 4.0GHz and my GTX680 is OCed a little. I've heard the performance optimizations issue in some YouTube videos as well. While it doesn't look as good as a BF3 or something like that, I don't really care because it doesn't look that bad and the experience is just phenomenal.

Last night we had the entire blue team, I think that's the New Conglomerate, parked in their warp gate and had all of the turrets blasted off. You would think there would be some sort of end game. Who knows. Every time I get on we have completely different territory taken and it's a whole new game again. It would be cool to get some sort of contribution award if there was an end game since no one is on the entire time. Just imagining I guess.

I've played all different kits. In my old clan days, I've typically was the odd man out and played whatever we needed so I typically get decent at every kit and spread my unlocks evenly. I always look for guns that are usable with more than one kit and upgrade those. I do like the light assault because you get a jet pack. A JET PACK! come on, that is cool. I play medic a lot when we are working on taking over a territory and we need people back on their feet. I also have played Heavy assault a lot and concentrate on taking out vehicles. The engineering gets the shaft sometimes because when you need them I find everyone has switched kits and they are repairing generators like mad, maybe it's for XP. From time to time I'll snipe with the infiltrator, but then again everyone wants to be a camping sniper. The MAX unit makes me feel like ED209 from Robocop.

So you get more points by taking territory than defending it? That is good to know.

 

[brett1042002]

As it stands now, you get 0 points for defending territory. You get 250-1000 XP capturing a base depending on what type of facility it is (Tech Plant, Bio Dome, small base).

That i7 @ 4GHz prob still runs circles around my 955BE (in this case anyways). GTX680 is a beast card too. I can upgrade either my GPU or CPU/mobo right now, and the other next spring/summer. Or, just wait and see if they are able to improve anything on their end.

If I'm not healing tanks/generators/Maxes on my engy, then I'm in a Scythe or gunning in my buddies Liberator. The Dalton w/ Thermal optics is sick on the Lib. I do alright with the Scythe. Seems like there are times where I fly flawlessly. Zooming through trees, under bridges, banking through the mountains like a boss, get a nice kill streak going. Next flight I take off and immediately slam right into a building.

 

[jay2tall]

I am the slap into the building guy most times. I've been working on that though. It's hard to get anything in my cross hair long enough to fire or make sufficient damage. I have found I am pretty good at running the gun on top of a Sunderer. I was terrible in jets and choppers in BF3 as well. Guess it's not my thing.

 

[bumnut53]

I play planet side 2, I use an i7 950 @3.6 and dual GTX 570's. I play at 2560 x 1440 in high settings and get around 60 fps, drops to around 35 - 45 in a big battle though.

My main problem with the game is that its not obvious what to do! Here are some things I think would improve the game for me :-

1. A visual notification when the squad leader sets a waypoint

2. Cheaper guns (£8 for a new gun!!!!!! or a huge grind)

3. Highlight targets like generators on the map clearly, its difficult to work out where to attack sometimes.

4. The ability to request assitance from other squad/platoons, and again an on screen notification.

The game needs work but I think it will be amazing 6 months down the line.

 

[brett1042002]

I'm starting to see the impacts of hackers now. Yesterday, I saw one guy blatantly speed hacking. One moment he was at the cap point, unloading on me, I turn to shoot him and POOF he is across the room shooting at me again. Zipping around instantly. He continued doing this until me and several others were able to slowing take him down. I hear aimbotting is becoming and issue too. Hope this doesn't get out of control and ruin the game.

 

[jay2tall]

Oh no, I hope the hacks don't start popping up. That is what ruined the COD series for me on PC. MW2 was absolutely terrible after a few months. I have not seen it yet, but i am sure I will. Hopefully they address this before it becomes an issue.

I agree on the gun cost as mentioned by bumnut. I got a $15 card for now and don't want to drop $7 on a single gun. I have notices that they have daily sales. I bought 2 guns from that at half the SC cost. This made it seem much more worth it to me. I still think the Cert credits take far to long to accrue. However, think that is the catch of not being a monthly subscriber. I can't see doing that since I have the habit of putting games down for weeks on end to play other games or simply because of family things. (a happy wife is a happy life). I see you can get "boosts" that will, for a short time, increase the XP and certs you get from playing. This might not be a bad option for me if I decide to sit down for an entire day to play or a good chunk of time. However, SC equates to real world money so I would have to be sure to take advantage of it.

Also, I still am not sure how to use the voice chat. I have not heard anyone talk on it either. So I wonder if it even works. I see options for squad chat, platoon chat, and also a proximity chat. Not sure if/how to get that to work.

 

[AntiZig]

Umm, the game is Planetside not stationside?

I saw it as an ad on steam and gave it a spin since it was free. First hour or so was confusing as hell, but they by mere chance of luck I got auto assigned to a small squad who had a few people with mic. I tagged along with them, we flew around on a galaxy taking out small bases for 2 hours. I have to say that was the best first try of an online game I have ever had. Running around not really understand what's going on, still impressed by the visuals due to seeing them for the first time. Trying to figure out what other classes models look like, trying to keep the allied Max healed up, making sure to drop those reload boxes, trying to pick a good spot for the mana turret, etc. It was great.

I have yet to find another group with a mic (it's been 2 weeks). The game is entertaining, whether you're playing with a buddy or not. Surely you will have harder time playing alone, especially while you're still low level in terms of certifications.

jay2tall: I don't believe there is any end game, the whole point of conquering territory is that you are getting all the benefits and resources from the land, while your opponents aren't. I too wish there was a way to get into the enemy warp gate and disable it or something, or at least get some reward for taking the last territory for your faction. Hopefully there will be something down the line. However, I'd like to point out that it's probably a population imbalance on your server if that situation happens often. The times I've played the populations on my server were evenly matched, so the territories were about evenly taken.

I think the whole idea they were going for is the constant action on the map, no matter when you get online you'll always be able to find some enemy to fight. That's mainly the focus of this game anyways.

brett: I've found that scythe is pretty darn hard to fly with M+K. I'm thinking if I had a proper joystick it'd be a lil more intuitive to pilot. With that said, a liberator or galaxy is significantly easier to deal with because you don't have to point your nose at things in order to shoot them, just the general direction. With that said, I've had more fun driving around in a tank, because you can actually hide a bit on land. In the air is far harder to find an object that would allow you to break LoS.

bumnut: I agree it's not obvious what to do as you start off, but the whole point of the game is to conquer territories or defending them (that makes the game pretty shallow but that's what it is at the moment, but I doubt it will go anywhere).

1. A visual notification when the squad leader sets a waypoint
There's a large "beam" symbol (kinda looks like downward pointing arrow), which indicates the squad leader waypoint. You can see it on minimap, as well as in normal view. There's a little chime whenever it gets moved.

2. Cheaper guns (£8 for a new gun!!!!!! or a huge grind)
This is how F2P games make money, so don't count on it

3. Highlight targets like generators on the map clearly, its difficult to work out where to attack sometimes.
As is, all the relevant objectives are indicated by appropriate icons, on the minimap, as well as in normal view. when you spawn inside a facility you're to defend you can spin around and see where all the icons are at, if you point at individual ones it will give you the distance to the point and the associated action with it (defend, repair, etc). If the icon is flashing, in most cases, means there's enemy activity in close proximity to it. I don't think it can get any clearer than that. Rivalxfactor has a few videos explaining what different icons do, how they link to each other and how to attack/defend different types of facilities.

4. The ability to request assitance from other squad/platoons, and again an on screen notification.

There's proximity area chat and something like faction or map chat. I agree that doesn't necessarily mean allied squads will read what's there. I agree that being able to create an icon indicating that you need reinforcements at a certain location that would be visible not only to your squad/platoon/outfit, but also to the rest of your faction would be helpful. However, with the amount of squads running around (I've been around battles where there were easily at least 200 people running around), imagine how many different requests for reinforcements you'd have on your screen.

Overall, I think the game is nice, the settings allow for good customization that can adopt to different playstyles and control preferences. The graphics are not superb, but they aren't bad either, I can notice there are some problems with the rendering engine (it is more likely to render a group of 3+ enemies than a single enemy, but the problem is that single enemy then remains invisible, which is not a good thing if he's an infiltrator or a tank). Another issue is at lowest settings, infiltrator cloak is very hard to spot, on highest settings they are relatively easy to notice. The game offers a nice variety of classes, vehicles and environments, not to mention weapons and customizations. Overall, I think it's got potential, but exactly how will it fair remains to be seen. So far my experience has been pretty positive.

My only question so far that has been bugging me immensely is if you get into a squad that has platoons set up, for the love of god, I have not been able to figure out how to switch between those platoons. I don't believe you can at the moment, but I'd love to know if somebody knows how to do it.

jay: voice chat is working and is actually easy to set up because the settings part for the mic is done excellently (the best I've seen out of all online games I've played that support mic, hell it's even better than ventrillo and mumble), because it allows you to actually record your own mic and listen to what it will sound like in-game. I think the problem is that there's a bit too many channels for voice chat that are not obvious until you dive into the key bindings menu, and even then, majority of them are bound to the numpad, so you can imagine how many people are willing to reach for that in order to say a few words.

 

[brett1042002]

@ AntiZig
Yea, they definitely just drop you right into the action with little tutorial, but I believe I read somewhere that is what the devs planned on. Dump you into the action and have at it, lol. Not saying its right, but... different.

Little off-topic. I've decided to upgrade my mobo and CPU. Planetside 2 has brought my rig to its knees... plus its just time to anyways, lol.

i5 3570K (plan on ~4.2GHz OC)
MSI Z77A-G41 Mobo
Xigmatek Gaia 120mm heatsink (currently $19.99, Hyper 212+ is $34.99, Gaia performs better too according to Frostytech)

Sticking with my AMD 5870 for now, holding out for 8000 series next year.

F2P is a interesting system. I've only invested 20 bucks into Station Cash thus far. I don't subscribe. I probably wont invest any more money into it anytime soon. I feel I gain plenty of certs by sticking with the zerg and joining the big battles. I got about 500 certs in the last few days.

 

[AntiZig]

yeah I don't think getting certs is a big problem that you're forced to resort to SC to get anything. Sure, getting a fully decked out weapon with all the attachments and stuff will take some time with no monetary investment, while going the SC route is pretty much instant. It's all a matter of preference and how much you're willing to spend on the game in time vs money.

And the drop into action, it certainly leaves you without an elaborate tutorial, but let's be serious here, if you're coming to play PS2 you know how an FPS goes. Surely, getting the objectives and facilities and vehicles down will take some time, but I doubt anyone will complain about not understanding the complexity of the game as being a negative thing. As is, the game doesn't make any ground breaking changes to require a tutorial in order to explain to player how the game works.

 

[jay2tall]

Yes... Sorry the title is totally wrong. it is PlanetSide2. I think I needed another cup of coffee or something when starting this.

I have noticed that the SC don't really get you THAT much. You can buy guns, boosts, and then all cosmetic stuff. The rest has to be Certs. So if i buy a few weapons I can use my certs to deck them out as I please.

I will have to sit and try to test out the in game voice chat. I think that may be with to figure out next time I jump on. I do have to work on getting some Certs. We have a tendency to defend a point and not move on until the waves have stopped coming.

@Brett: Nice choice on upgrade. It should hold you good for a while. I am all about OCing the CPU. I don't think I would be as pleased with mine if I had not done the same. I am still holding out until Haswell, most likely. I just haven't seen that much performance increase in the "i" series Intel CPU's except for clock speed and features. so if I have a 4GHz i7 first gen, it's probably not going to be worth the upgrade. The only things I really wish I had was SATA III and USB 3.0. Although I could always add a USB 3.0 card, but the SATA III cards just don't work that well and I do not believe they support TRIM. If they do they are expensive.
I upgrade my video card every generations. I found that if I followed the rumor release dates and sold my card on eBay about 1-2 weeks before release, I could get a premium price for my existing card. It is usually 1/2-2/3 the cost of the new card. Last time I sold my GTX580 for 2/3 the cost of the GTX680. This also gives me the longest possible run on the new GPU before it is time to upgrade. I do have to settle for the OEM cards and coolers, but oh well. It still OCs quite a bit and has a good warranty.

 

[Trialsking]

Last night we had the entire blue team, I think that's the New Conglomerate, parked in their warp gate and had all of the turrets blasted off.

If you were on the North Amercan server Garniune(spelling)?, thanks alot for kicking out butts. You guys were pwnings my brothers and I!!!!!

 

[renz496]

personally i'm quite addicted to the game as well. most of my gaming time are now on PS 2 . on average i can get 40+ FPS with every setting set to high + AO + no fog shadow + v-sync (gpu at stock clock: 775Mhz). i played at much lower res though (1600x900).

For those of you who do play I'm still getting the hang of the game and understanding the objective of the entire thing still eludes me a little. For example, last evening Me and a buddy where playing on the snowy continent of Esamir. We are Vanu (purple), and pushed the other two factions back to their Warp Gates. However, since you can not enter that area as it is restricted, what is the objective? Can you ever enter this area and if not, how do you win the game?

AFAIK the warp gates are some kind of 'safe' area for all player and based on my experience so far this area are not accessible to non-faction member. so the best you could do was holding them back from gaining any territory. if you can hold both faction from gaining any territory for a while (i'm not really sure about this though) then your faction will be declared as the winner and your faction will get some bonus (like 10% off when buying mechanize unit and such) until the map is conquered by another faction. as for the real objective of the game i'm not sure about that either . to be honest i just jump into the game without knowing anything and try to learn stuffs myself as i progress through the game lol. but so far i really enjoy the game.

 

[jay2tall]

I kind of like if there is no end or a very difficult one to achieve. I really like to just jump in and enjoy the time I have playing. It's a fun game and hopefully the little hacks and Rogue warriors stick to their COD and BF3.

 

[brett1042002]

@Jay2Tall
Yea, it seems like AMDs lack of IPC, or possibly poor single-threaded performance shows in this game. All my friends with i5 2500K, or higher, seem to have no issues running the game at least 40+ FPS with comparable GPUs to mine. And thats high settings/high resolution. It seems my GPU isn't really utilized that much currently (like 60%). However, Core 0 is taxed pretty hard (~90%) and the other 3 hover around ~40-50% in game. Sucks having to lower settings though, this game is really nice cranked up.

I plan on selling my previous hardware. It would make a great budget gaming rig. All of it is in working order, and taken care of (no voltage changes). You may see it posted on Tom's Classifieds soon. I will, most likely, part it out or offer the bundle for a lower price. Mobo, CPU, Heatsink, and RAM. I think I even have all the boxes, manuals, accessories, etc.

Back on topic, ever get the itch to just go on a knifing spree in game? Knives only. I did that with a Light Assault last night. I recommend challenging yourselves to do knives only for a while. Either Infiltrator or Light Assault. Good times will be had. Unless you die a lot, then not so much.

 

[jay2tall]

Yeah I checked my CPU while running the game and it seems to run each HT core at around 20%ish.

I actually like keeping a case an a cheap power supply sitting around so that I can thrown an old motherboard, CPU, ram, old drive, etc, into it and sell as a system. Complete systems seem to sell MUCH better than just parts. Between me and a buddy we sometimes throw parts in to help the other out to sell.

I have not had much success in knifing anyone. It is not like other FPS's where you can land a fatal knife strike. It seems you just slash and slash till they are down. I may "challenge" myself sometime JUST because you challenged me. "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED". In BFBC2 we used to use the repair tool and run around repair tooling people. THAT was fun because it made people mad.

 

[brett1042002]

If they ONLY made the repair tool kill others on PS2 . So much fun doing that in BF3.

Word is if you knife in the head/face it does a lot more damage than body. I have yet to test this, but one time my buddy knifed me and it dang near killed me with full shields/health. He said he aimed for my head. But yea, otherwise it can take like 3-4 strikes. I'm gonna try it again tonight and see what kind of streak I can muster. Most likely a death streak...

 

[jay2tall]

Yeah, people don't stay still enough in PS2 to knife. Maybe an infiltrator camping a rock or high point, but they always whip around and pistol me in the face. I tried to knife a someone the other night and was coming up behind them... then OH jetpack, he flew to the top of a building. *sad face*

 

[rubix_1011]

The title of this topic has been edited by Rubix_1011

 

[jay2tall]

Fantastic! Thanks rubix for fixing my goof.

 

[jay2tall]

So has anyone seen any ads for bonus Station Cash? I work with a dude that plays EVE online. He says they have double or triple Station Cash certain times like for Black Friday or random specific dates. He said Seven Eleven has Station Cash cards that at times will give you x2 or x3 Station Cash. However, doing some research this looks like it is specific per game. If the deal was for EVE online the same Station Cash card would not double or triple for PS2.

I guess my question is, anyone see any deals?

 

[brett1042002]

Yea, I was reading about these deals on Planetside Universe forums. Seems like they do this several times a year. The best guess on when they will do double/triple cash again is on or around Christmas. I know I said I wouldn't invest anymore, but this is very tempting, lol.

 

[jay2tall]

I bought a $15 card just to see how long that lasts. I think if I buy more SC it would be through a deal like this. $20 would get me 4000 SC if doubled and 6000 if tripled. I think I could handle that.

 

[brett1042002]

I can definitely see dropping another $20 for 6000 SC. That would go a long ways for me. Did you see some of the upcoming updates?

John Smedley (PS2 Dev) said, via Twitter, new weapons are coming today (carbines and sniper rifles) and next week is new anti-vehicle weapons.

Also, here is a link to Matt Higby (PS2 Dev) discussing plans for Air vs Ground Balance. Interesting stuff
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=50967

Looking forward to all the additions and fixes!